


Sun sinks down, no curfew;

by kotaro_kun



Series: It's Nice to Have a Friend [2]
Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Anorexia, Childhood Friends, College, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Growing Up Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, They love each other, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, everything ends fine!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:08:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21528817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kotaro_kun/pseuds/kotaro_kun
Summary: “I can stop whenever I want,” Richie said, blowing out the smoke from the cigarette.“It’s never true when someone says that, you know.”*"He took notice of the taste of sugar, and smoke and how both of them were painted rose-pink while thunder was inside their rib cages.All the while reminding himself that it would bejust this once, in the morning they were going to go their separate ways. In the morning Eddie would become once again dull and blurred like Richie’s eyes.Eddie could stop whenever he wanted."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: It's Nice to Have a Friend [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551595
Comments: 2
Kudos: 100





	Sun sinks down, no curfew;

_“This town grows inside of you,_   
_You are the ground and it is the tamarisk and you know it’s going to_   
_bury itself in you deep and suck out all your worth_

  
_So your soles ache and your soul aches but you are the ground_   
_and the ground can’t buy bus tickets away from here.”_

* * *

It’s august. It’s summer. Well, it has been for a couple weeks now.

_Richie is leaving._

They’re up in Richie’s roof and everything around them is pink.  
  
The sky, Eddie’s sun-kissed cheeks, the flower petal in Richie’s hair, their lips — stained from the black raspberry juice they drank, coming back from the fair they had went with the rest of the Loser’s, the last time they would be together.

Bill’s parents decided to send him to live in England with his aunt, and to study Literature there. Ben is going to Texas, after having a scholarship in Architecture offered to him. Stan is going to Atlanta, with the rest of his family — they were only waiting for him to finish school to move. Mike — Eddie’s little blessing, would be staying with him, here in Derry. Beverly had already been gone for some time now, living with her aunt in Portland, but now she had decided to try her luck in Chicago. The same way Richie was going to try his in Los Angeles.

And he was happy for all of them. It’s true. Because if he could, he would have chosen to leave this hole too. But he couldn't. 

_Richie can’t too, but he’s going. You could go with him,_ he reminds himself. And there’s that feeling again of maybe. _Maybe I’m going. I could. I should._ It’s like his mind doesn’t know that he’s about to run out of time. Because tomorrow feels so close and yet so far away. It feels seconds and years away at the same time. 

It’s a copying mechanism, he thinks. He’s in denial. _My best friends are leaving me behind. Everyone’s leaving me behind._ He feels so bitter and ugly and dark.

Everything was pink. And everything had shadows. They were in the front garden under their feet, in the stubble on Richie’s jaw, under Eddie’s moist eyes, chasing after the smoke coming out of the other’s mouth. The reason why they had come up here.

Technically Richie was allowed to smoke, being over eighteen and all, but old habits die hard and once you’ve spent five years hiding cigarettes under rocks in the Quarry or in the gap between your bed and the mattress you don’t instantly start smoking inside your room, not caring if your dad comes in or not. 

Even if Richie didn’t give a fuck if his parents caught on him, because he would be leaving in the morning, hopefully to never look back to this place and everything in it. 

Eddie wished he could go back in time and change things, change his mother, save his dad. So he could become a child with grass stained knees, little daisies in his hair and a missing tooth. To be able to climb a tree laughing, with bruised shins and scratched hands. 

Before his mom could tell him fear. When he was still a brave child and didn’t fear the grass, the world, mistakes. 

Instead he is this. Thin legs, thin wrists, no bravery, bruised knees, soft hands.

He took the cigarette from Richie’s lips with rosebud fingertips and put it out in one of the roof tiles. 

“I hope you stop smoking once you get to California,”

Richie snorted already reaching for another in the pack, “Yeah, and I hope you stop starving yourself when I get there too, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that,” He said weakly with a locked jaw and watering eyes. But he didn’t find in him to fight with Richie. They were both hurt, they were both leaving each other. Richie for his dream and a maybe and Eddie for his mom and his comfort. 

Richie sighs, placing another cigarette on his mouth, the flame from the lighter — a gift from Beverly — illuminating his brown eyes that the other so much hated but Eddie always loved. He loved everything in his best friend, yes, but especially the eyes. “I can stop whenever I want,”

“It’s never true when someone says that, you know.” He shoots back, because he had told himself that a thousand times, everytime his knees hitted the tile floor of his bathroom and he bended over the toilet. _I can stop anytime if I want to_ , he used to think while he stuck two fingers down his throat. 

Richie breaths the smoke out of his mouth and leans back on his hands, the stick hanging from his lips.

“Let’s play twenty questions,” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” 

“Yes. I’ll start.”

Eddie huffed, but relented bringing his knees to his chest.

“Have you ever kissed someone?”

“Yes.” Behind the church, while the bells rang. It was a girl, he didn’t like it. 

“Have you ever had sex?”

“No,” but I’ve touched myself.

“Do you want to?”

“What type of question is that? Of course I want to have sex in the course of my life!” He yelled, both annoyed and flustered. 

“Only yes or no!” Richie yelled too, throwing his head back and laughing. And Eddie started laughing too because Richie almost swallowed the cigarette he was holding in his lips. 

When he opened his eyes Richie was looking at him, with the rest of his laugh still present in the curve of his lips and was struck with the feeling of _want_.

He wanted so much, he thought bitterly. He wanted to kiss Richie, he wanted to have been firmer and not accepted the cotton candy, he wanted to have more courage, he wanted, he wanted, — it felt like that was all he was, wanting and inside it was all empty because he had nothing and he was always ashamed and afraid because of it. Because he couldn’t take.

But Richie was just so pretty. With his knotted hair, and big front teeth, the four moles on his face, the brown eyes, dulled from those huge coke bottle lenses he wore, the ones Richie insisted were boring but that for Eddie was like melted chocolate when Eddie is craving something sweet all the time. His mouth, that made Eddie laugh five different laughs, that had the most beautiful smile and were so red, even without the juice, and Eddie wanted to kiss them, even if they would taste like ash and smoke, he wanted it and this was his last chance. 

“Do you love someone?”

He lifted his eyes and saw that Richie was still looking at him, with his hands playing with the lighter and his jaw set.

“Yes,” _I love you._

 _But I shouldn't, that’s why is best that you’re leaving._ It's not appropriate, and he had to forget it. He had to forget Richie.

But instead what he did was deepen the kiss when Richie kissed him, instead what he did was put his hand in his cheek and feel the stubble, trace his thumb on his cheek bones where there’s a mole. 

He should’ve gone home after that, slept on his own bed, that was the sensible thing to do. 

What he did instead was let Richie lay him down and strip him, was allow his hands to touch every inch of skin they could. Was take everything the taller had to offer. 

He took notice of the taste of sugar, and smoke and how both of them were painted rose-pink while thunder was inside their rib cages. 

All the while reminding himself that it would be _just this once,_ in the morning they were going to go their separate ways. In the morning Eddie would become once again dull and blurred like Richie’s eyes. 

Eddie could stop whenever he wanted. 

“We haven’t finished the game.” Eddie said, layed on top of Richie’s chest, looking at the dark shadows in the empty room. 

“You can ask me now.” He said combing his fingers through Eddie’s soft curls.

“Do you love me?” 

He forced his gaze up to Richie’s eyes, who looked pained. Eddie wondered if one day he would forget what color they were. 

“You’re the thing I love the most in this world, Spaghetti. Since the day I laid eyes on you.” He smiled sadly, and Eddie smiled too, hiding the tears on the chest his face was pressed against.

When the morning did come Eddie collected his clothes, thrown among Richie’s baggage and moving boxes, while Richie laid in his bed puffing clouds of gray smoke to the ceiling. 

“I’m going to come back,” 

Eddie turned around. “What?”

“I’m going to come back. For you. I’ll find a job and then I’ll come get you.” His eyes left the ceiling to look directly at Eddie's, with a seriousness that wasn't there quite often. The determined gaze had always been there. “Is that alright for you? Can you wait?” _For me._

Eddie smiled, while tears slipped down his cheeks. “Yes.”

He was always afraid but looking at Richie’s beaming smile and bright eyes he realized he would bear it, the uncertainty, the hardships, everything thrown his way just for him. Because Richie made him brave. 

They didn’t say goodbye. 

Walking back to his house, in the early morning, while the sun filtered through the trees and pooled in the pavement, with birds chirping and flying free, he remembered something he had read somewhere, that August brings bad luck. And he smiled thinking how quickly it had turned from a bad august to a good one. But he still hoped that september would arrive soon. And october, and november and every month that he would spend far away from Richie. 

The word in his mouth along his smile: hope.


End file.
